Yoga studio websites: are they an accurate first glance at the studio's mission, values, and resources?

Abstract

Background: Yoga, as an ancient and modern practice, increases physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and social health. Yoga studio websites serve as a dissemination channel for studios to express their offerings, whom they employ, and whom they seek as clientele. Public health workers, physicians, researchers, and clinicians, can refer to existing studios to increase health among their patients or clients. The degree to which these websites can provide relevant information to these various stakeholder groups has yet to be defined.

Methods: A pragmatic, sequential mixed-methods study was employed with quantitative data extraction, summarized as means and proportions, to score the studio websites (N = 28), and semi-structured interviews (n = 6) analyzed using the rigorous and accelerated data reduction (RADaR) technique, to confirm website content and staff intention. To explore urban and rural characteristics, yoga studios in southwest Virginia and Los Angeles were selected for inclusion.

Results: Overall, community-based yoga studios websites included information on the type, duration, cost, and COVID mitigation strategies. The most common class duration was 60 min. Rural Southwest Virginia studios offered 8.5 classes per week whereas those in urban Los Angeles offered 24.2 classes per week. All studios used iconography and images to invite racial, ethnic, age, and body type and ability diversity. While studios in both areas specified that there were 200- and 500-hour registered yoga teachers, many of the instructor biographies did not include information on their training. Although only preliminary, the interviews (n = 6) confirmed that the websites generally represented the feel, intention, and offerings of the studio and that the primary purpose of the studio was to build relationships and ensure people felt comfortable in the space.

Conclusion: Website information was related to studio offerings and values; however, discussion with management or visiting the studio may provide a richer picture of the yoga practices offered in the space. Further suggestions for website content are provided.

Keywords: Health communication; Health promotion; Physical activity.